Techcordance

AOL

Media giant Time Warner announced Thursday morning that it will cast off its AOL division to become a standalone company.
Before that separation can take place, Time Warner will buy the 5 percent of AOL owned by Google so that it will have 100 percent control of AOL. Time Warner expects the transaction with Google to take place in the third quarter and the final AOL spinoff around the end of the year.
As an independent, publicly traded company, AOL will focus on growing its Web brands and services, as well as its advertising business, according to Time Warner.
The separation of AOL from Time Warner will put a final nail in the coffin of one of the emblematic mergers of the dot-com boom and bust. Brimming with the abundant funds and hyper-optimism of the Web’s go-go years, AOL–then known as America Online–acquired Time Warner in January 2001 to create the world’s largest media company. Within a year, however, it was already apparent that the union of new and old media was not as “supercharged” as its backers had promised.

Windows 7

SEATTLE (Reuters) -

Microsoft Corp is on track to release its new Windows 7 operating system in time for the holiday shopping season, an executive said on Monday, confirming talk it is ahead of its own conservative schedule for replacing the unpopular Vista system.

The world’s largest software company has so far been vague on specifying the timing of its new operating system, wary of disappointing customers. But it has broadly targeted the end of this year or the beginning of next year.

“Windows 7 is tracking well for holiday availability,” Bill Veghte, senior vice president of Microsoft’s Windows business said at an event on Monday, citing good test results on the early version of the system released to developers and the public over the past few weeks.

ABC on Hulu

Disney will become a joint venture partner and equity owner of Hulu, taking a 30 percent stake in the YouTube competitor. Hulu will get more Disney programming, including full-length episodes of hit programs. The Disney-Hulu deal is a windfall for Hulu, but a blow for YouTube, as Hulu is succeeding in an area where YouTube has struggled.
The Walt Disney Company on Thursday announced what many analysts have been predicting: It’s buying a stake in online video-content aggregator Hulu.
Through a subsidiary of ABC Enterprises, Disney will join NBC Universal, News Corp., and Providence Equity Partners as a joint-venture partner and equity owner of Hulu. Disney is taking a 30 percent stake in the quasi-YouTube competitor.

Twitter

Boy, did I pick an interesting week in which to join Twitter: First I join up (@twailgum) last Thursday. The very next day someone named Oprah Winfrey goes out there and steals all my thunder.The nerve!The Twitter world was abuzz when Ashton Kutcher finally bested CNN in their duel to first reach 1 million followers. Then, of course, Twitter’s servers had to work extra hard to keep up with the media-enabled crush of new Tweeters like me-soccer moms, book clubbers, yo-yo dieters and other curious folks wondering what this whole Twitter thing is all about.The resulting “Oprah Effect” on Twitter’s back-end operations caused a couple of issues for users. During my first six days, for instance, my profile page displayed just one icon out of the numerous people I was following: Professional golfer Stewart Cink.Though I wasn’t alone (Twitter’s help page noted this kind of problem was pervasive), I felt as though it made me look some kind of a stalker of professional golfers named Stewart.

Mac maleware

Pirate Bay Trial

In one of the biggest technology-oriented legal cases of the year (the entire trial was broadcast live on Swedish TV), the four men responsible for the operation of the notorious Pirate Bay website — an unapologetic haven for obtaining copyrighted music, TV shows, movies, software, and just about anything else for free — have at last been found guilty of “assisting in making copyright content available.” All four defendants have been sentenced to one year in prison and are compelled to pay damages of $905,000 each.
The verdict is paradoxically both surprising and wholly expected. On the surface, it’s obvious that The Pirate Bay has always done what it was charged with, “assisting in making copyright content available” is the site’s very charter, and the website has long been upfront that that’s exactly what it does. But TPB has always offered up the defense that, under Swedish law, making copyrighted material available for download is not actually illegal. Some of its letters to Hollywood studios in response to demands that it take down copies of various movies linked on the site are downright hysterical in their brashness.